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Nope. S.28 says right at the top: “A vote at a meeting by a person entitled to vote or by a proxy must be cast in person unless the owners corporation, by resolution passed at a general meeting, determines that a vote may be cast by some other specified means.
It goes on to say the regulations can allow for those “other specified means”. And you will find the details here in Section 14 of the Regs.
So the committee can’t do this on its own, but you could have a motion right at the start of your next general meeting to allow electronic voting, which will be entirely kosher if the majority attending the meeting in person or by proxy agrees.
You might then alert people to the opportunity to vote electronically or in advance in writing.
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I stand (1.5m away) corrected. Thanks.
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Yeah, but no. This is in Victoria, where section 49 of the Act (below) which allows owners corps to only charge owners for repairs to common property that affect their lots and exclude others from the payment.
I would approach the committee with a request to be excluded from the payment completely with a clear indication that you will take this to Consumer Affairs and VCAT if they refuse.
Owners Corporation Act Victoria (2006)
Section 49 – Cost of repairs, maintenance or other works(1) An owners corporation may recover as a debt the cost of repairs, maintenance or other works undertaken wholly or substantially for the benefit of one or some, but not all, of the lots affected by the owners corporation from the lot owners.
(2) The amount payable by the lot owners is to be calculated on the basis that the lot owner of the lot that benefits more pays more.
(3) The works referred to in this section may be to the common property or a lot.
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Thanks for the tip.
But I will proceed with the migration to Simple:Press because it’s a nicer interface for readers, easier to use, and there are a bunch of people at the end of their website who look after it for a living – BBPress (which is what we’re using now) is too hard to fix, especially when someone comes up with a handy plugin then wanders off to do something else after a year or so and it goes out of date.
For instance, when I tried to split this conversation off to a separate topic, it refuses and comes up with “A variable mismatch has been detected” when I go to the BBPress help page, there are others with similar problems but no solution offered after 18 months!
Changing horses is definitely on my ever-lengthening to-do list
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I would still recommend the advice I gave before. Appointing a compulsory strata manager is often a cure that’s worse than the disease, in terms of cost and loss of control over your strata scheme. At least check them out, before this gets too far down the track.
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Yet another reason for me to get my act together and switch back to Simple:Press which I used to have on this website until it started crashing on me (more than a year ago). It seems to be working fine now, though. Just a matter of time and money to get back to where we were before.
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No worries, Miranda. And what you typed here was fine.
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Apologies. That’s my Apple allergy showing. This is what ‘leftover coding’ means from your previous post (and it’s in your current post too):
User: Miranda
Topic: Who pays Vendor’s arrears debt
Content: <div dir=”ltr” data-setdir=”false”>I bought my new flat in NSW on 17 Dec 2019 and part of the settlement papers I signed included a Strata Search which clearly states No Arrears for my flat.</div>
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<div dir=”ltr”>Now I’ve received my first Strata fee invoice, which shows Arrears of some $500, unpaid by my vendor.</div>
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<div dir=”ltr”>On querying this with the Strata Manager he just rudely says I have to pay, no discussion.</div>
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<div dir=”ltr”>My conveyancer (solicitor) said they have contacted the vendor’s s solicitor who is chasing it up with him with no response so far. She also said that although in the Settlement papers it shows No Arrears this popped up 3 days after I signed and that the SM should have indicated on the Settlement papers that there was a fee notice coming up to be paid by the vendor Obviously if I’d known this I would have delayed the purchase until they were paid.</div>
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<div dir=”ltr”>What I’m wondering is</div>
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<div dir=”ltr” data-setdir=”false”>are the signed Settlement papers legally binding?</div>
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<div dir=”ltr” data-setdir=”false”>Is the SM required to try and chase the debt themselves .</div>
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<div dir=”ltr” data-setdir=”false”>If it should happen that the vendor won’t pay the debt (likely) who is responsible to pay the debt? The OC, me? I’ve done a lot of searching but can’t find anything to address this.</div>
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<div dir=”ltr” data-setdir=”false”>Thanks</div>
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<div dir=”ltr”></div>If any computer literate Flatchatters out there can see what’s wrong here – and maybe it’s something at this end – I’d love to know because it’s obviously not Miranda’s intention to send it in this form.
Meanwhile I recommend you type directly into the Forum or save your posts as .txt or .rtf files before copying and posting.
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This is not the strata manager’s responsibility. Their job is to collect the money from the lot owner, whoever that might be at the time of the bill being issued.
It’s certainly not the owners corporation either. It has absolutely nothing to do with them.
[Actually, on reading the post below, I realised it obviously does have something to do with the OC since it’s money owed to them. My bad. But the point I was trying to make is that either the vendor or the purchaser owes the money and it’s just a matter of establishing which it is – JimmyT]
The responsibility either lies with the conveyancer, if they failed to pick up on the unpaid amount, or the vendor who made a false statement about the state of the levies payment.
Or there is another possibility – there was a pro-rata charge for the levies for the period that you owned the flat which fell in the previous quarter covered by the levies. The Vendor would have paid their share and the balance would then fall to you as arrears.
Have a look at these posts and see if they ring any bells.
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If it’s a dysfunctional committee that’s causing the problem, that’s also where the answer to this lies.
Run a case through Fair Trading and NCAT under section 232 (a) and (2) (below) for failure to comply with their statutory duties. Then run another case under Section 238 to have the backsliders and recalcitrants kicked off the committee for good.
To answer your question, NCAT will only fine the OC, but your local council might decide that living in an uninsured building is dangerous and declare the block unfit for habitation. It’d say it’s a long shot but they have the power to do that where NCAT doesn’t.
232 Orders to settle disputes or rectify complaints(1) Orders relating to complaints and disputesThe Tribunal may, on application by an interested person, original owner or building manager, make an order to settle a complaint or dispute about …
(e) an exercise of, or failure to exercise, a function conferred or imposed by or under this Act or the by-laws of a strata scheme,
(2) Failure to exercise a function
For the purposes of this section, an owners corporation, strata committee or building management committee is taken not to have exercised a function if—
(a) it decides not to exercise the function, or
(b) application is made to it to exercise the function and it fails for 2 months after the making of the application to exercise the function in accordance with the application or to inform the applicant that it has decided not to exercise the function in accordance with the application.
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Of course sound travels sideways and in apartment blocks, it can move in other mysterious ways too. Most apartments on the same floor are sitting on the same concrete slab so you can see how that would be the case. If he has put the boards directly on to concrete he has turne his flat into a giant xylophone.
The retrospective approvalists need to understand that they are opening a can of worms that might come back and seriously affect them when another renovator uses this by-law breach as a precedent to do what they want.
I would be saying to the floor board installer that he needs to pay for acoustic engineers (chosen by the committee) to conduct sound tests to establish the exising sound insulation levels in the building in non-affected flats, and then the level of sound insulation in his flat in relation to all the flats around him.
Do not accept the bog-standard BCA ratings as the benchmark for your block – it has to be the level of insulation that everyone bought into … unless you want to turn your unit block into a cheap and cheerless Lego block such as we have seen popping up (and falling down) all over our cities.
If … sorry, when the floorboard guy refuses, start proceedings at Fair Trading to have the carpet re-installed. That is the only way your committee will be taken seriously.
If the guy had done as much research on your by-laws and strata law, as he must have put into finding the cheapest flooring, he wouldn’t have this problem.
The music question is different, and I’d be issuing Notices To Comply if it is at all intruding on other residents’ peaceful enjoyment of their units.
It sounds like this person really shouldn’t be living in an apartment but that doesn’t mean everyone else has to conform to his selfish standards.
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As Col Schultz said, theis is a tough row to hoe and very much a case of “be careful what you wish for”.
Firstly, you would have to convince the Tribunal that there was something seriously amiss that couldn’t be fixed through normal methods. People not following the rules is not enough. The fact that you have mmanaged to forc one unit to remove illegal structures is proof that the system works – it just doesn’t work well.
Also, if a statuory manager comes in, you relinquish all power and influence. Also, becasue they are legally required to do everything by the book, it can make things very expensive indeed.
If I were you I would reach out to all the ethnic owners in the building – maybe bring in an interpreter from one of the friendship groups like the Australian-Vietnam Friendship Society or whatever the approriate ethnicity is, and get them to explain to the residents how and why they need to be involved.
This may sound like a mammoth task but, trust me, it’s easier than running a case through NCAT, especially since the results there are far from guaranteed.
Develop an understanding of how power structures work in those other societies and that will guide you to your next move – take over the whole owners corp, get rid of the dead wood and put things on an even keel.
That is going to be a much more enriching and satisfying process for you than bashing your head off the NCAT brick wall.
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The DA seems to allow hotel/motel style lets “with permission”. That means they can’t be allowed without permission.
But to clarify, you’d do well to get a by-law that says something like the DA doesn’t allow short-term lets without permission and the strata scheme reserves the right to withhold permission for short-term holiday lets on a case by base basis.
Basically, you need a strata lawyer to create this by-law for you … or wait until the new short-term letting strata laws come in.
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